Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
"Coming of Age in Samoa," published in 1928 by anthropologist Margaret Mead, explores the transition from childhood to adulthood among Samoan girls. Mead's research, conducted in the Manu'a group of American Samoa, posits that adolescence in this culture is characterized by a peaceful and smooth integration into adult roles, contrasting sharply with the emotional turmoil often observed in industrialized societies. She highlights the absence of conflicting social values in Samoan life and suggests that the openness regarding sexuality allows young women to engage in casual relationships before marriage, contributing to a less stressful coming-of-age experience.
The book sparked significant controversy and debate regarding its portrayal of Samoan culture, particularly the representation of sexual freedom. Critics, including some Samoan scholars and later anthropologists, questioned the accuracy of Mead's findings, suggesting that the young women she interviewed may have misrepresented their experiences. Despite these critiques, some researchers defended Mead's conclusions, leading to ongoing discussions about the validity of her work. "Coming of Age in Samoa" remains a pivotal text in anthropology, illuminating cultural differences in the experience of adolescence while also inviting scrutiny and dialogue on the interpretations of cultural practices.
Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
Identification: Account of anthropological fieldwork in American Samoa
Author: Margaret Mead
Date: 1928
Coming of Age in Samoa presented the thesis that adolescence for Samoan girls was not a time of anxiety or confusion, as it was in industrialized nations, but was instead a peaceful transition from childhood to adult roles. The book inspired a great deal of controversy among both United States and Polynesian audiences, in large part due to Mead’s characterization of Samoan culture as sexually permissive.
In 1925, Margaret Mead, then a graduate student at Columbia University, traveled to American Samoa to perform anthropological fieldwork on the remote island of Ta‘u, in the Manu‘a group. There, she interviewed nearly seventy young Samoan women about their experiences and conducted basic psychological tests. Based on this fieldwork, Coming of Age in Samoa analyzes the adolescent experience in American Samoa and concludes that the emotional distress common among adolescents in industrialized societies is a construct of such societies, rather than an inevitable human experience.
In Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead suggests that the adolescent anxieties common in the United States and elsewhere were not present in Samoa at the time of her research, in part due to the absence of conflicting social values in Samoan society. In addition, she notes that young Samoan women frequently engage in casual sex before entering the realm of marriage and children, rather than repressing their sexuality. Mead argues that these factors, along with the openness of Samoan society, in which facts of birth, death, and reproduction are not kept secret from children, contribute to an easy transition into adulthood, rather than the emotionally distressing experience of adolescence considered typical in the United States.
Impact
The publication of Coming of Age in Samoa garnered Mead a great deal of attention within the anthropological community, as well as in the media. Some scholars, organizations, and individuals of Samoan descent objected to the book’s interpretation of Samoan sexuality, and Mead was accused of bias in this area. It was also argued that Mead was misled by the young women she interviewed, who may have exaggerated or lied about their experiences. In the 1980s, anthropologist Derek Freeman published a critique of Mead’s research, devoting a substantial portion of his career to refuting her conclusions. Other anthropologists, including Lowell D. Holmes and Ellen Rhoads Holmes, largely defended Mead’s findings. The validity of the conclusions presented in Coming of Age in Samoa remained subject to debate throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
Bibliography
Freeman, Derek. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Holmes, Lowell D., and Ellen Rhoads Holmes. Samoan Village: Then and Now. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
Shankman, Paul. The Trashing of Margaret Mead: The Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.